Sixth Stage of Yankee Denial

6) Signing Roger Clemens

When the Steinbrenner/Cashman tandem is so desperate that they're investing nearly $30 million (when you include the $7 mil-plus to the luxury tax this deal will add) for a guy who will start maybe 20 games, 25 at the most, you realize the Yanks are totally boned.

And they know it.

Clemens's annual game of playing hard-to-get is egotistical enough in its own right; signing with a wallowing franchise in expectation that he'll be able to single-handedly reverse their course to a World Series berth is fucking ludricrous. Roger's hero Nolan Ryan never pulled this kind of shit.

Thank you, Theo, for not signing Clemens. You may have stocked the Boston franchise with a slough of overpriced talent and made one of the most unexplainable trades (Bronson Arroyo for Wily Mo Cerrano still has me scratching my head) since the days of Lou Gorman, but you're not desperate. There is no team in baseball that needs Clemens more than the Yanks, but there is no player period who could do for New York what they are asking of Clemens.